Reducing Maternal Mortality in the United States

Strong, accurate data are critical for identifying opportunities for preventing deaths among mothers and designing effective interventions. A new collaboration between the CDC Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs will produce stronger data than ever before and foster collaboration that can lead to effective interventions. Funding for the collaboration was provided through an award agreement with Merck on behalf of its Merck for Mothers program.

To study the temporal variability of phenol urinary concentrations during pregnancy, focusing on the between-day and between-trimester variability. The study will identify the efficiency of within-subject pooling of biospecimens to characterize the mean urinary levels of phenols during pregnancy.

To assess the feasibility of collecting urine and blood specimens from women who enroll in the Boston University Pregnancy Study Online program and to characterize the distribution of urinary bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalate-metabolites and serum-perfluorinated chemicals in collected urine and blood specimens.

To characterize environmental exposures experienced by pregnant women and their infant children and their association with the developing human intestinal microbiome. Concentrations of triclosan and parabens will be measured in urines collected from pregnant women who participated in the Lifecodes study and their infants.

To examine whether maternal exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (e.g., phenols, phthalates) affect maternal the ribonucleic acid profile as well as ribonucleic acid, proteins and hormonal levels and whether in-utero and early life outcomes differ between males and female twins in the same twin pair.